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A CENTURY OF DISHONOR.

gain, they can talk together and find out what each wants, and then make their agreement.’

“We said to him: ‘We do not wish to go. When a man owns anything, he does not let it go till he has received payment for it.’

“We said to him: ‘We will see the President first.’

“He said to us: ‘I will take you to see the new land. If you like it, then you can see the President, and tell him so. If not, then you can see him and tell him so.’ And he took all ten of our chiefs down. I went, and Bright Eyes' uncle went. He took us to look at three different pieces of land. He said we must take one of the three pieces, so the President said. After he took us down there he said: ‘No pay for the land you left.’

“We said to him: ‘You have forgotten what you said before we started. You said we should have pay for our land. Now you say not. You told us then you were speaking truth.’ All these three men took us down there. The man got very angry. He tried to compel us to take one of the three pieces of land. He told us to be brave. He said to us: ‘If you do not accept these, I will leave you here alone. You are one thousand miles from home. You have no money. You have no interpreter, and you cannot speak the language.’ And he went out and slammed the door. The man talked to us from long before sundown till it was nine o'clock at night.

“We said to him: ‘We do not like this land. We could not support ourselves. The water is bad. Now send us to Washington, to tell the President, as you promised.’

“He said to us: ‘The President did not tell me to take you to Washington; neither did he tell me to take you home.’

“We said to him: ‘You have the Indian money you took to bring us down here. That money belongs to us. We would like to have some of it. People do not give away food for nothing. We must have money to buy food on the road.’